The Industrialized Life of Oliver Twist

Paper Summary:

The paper explains that Charles Dickens authored "Oliver Twist" with the goal of exposing the negative realities of the Industrial Revolution and protesting England's harsh Poor Law of 1834. The paper discusses how Dickens portrays the negative consequences of England's industrial expansion, specifically the exploitation of children.

From the Paper:

"On the surface, Charles Dicken's Oliver Twist may appear to be a children's novel about an orphan trying to make it in a world of adults. On a deeper level, however, there is a dark and solemn story of an abandoned and exploited youth in a newly industrialized city. Oliver Twist was written in 1836, directly in the midst of the Industrial Revolution and its vast effects on England's social and economic condition. After the advent of the steam engine, a previous agricultural society quickly turned into a land of factories, with textile mills increasing greatly (Greenblatt 1556)".

Sample of Sources Used:

• Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. New York: Penguin, 2003.
• Greenblatt, Stephen. "Industrialism: Progress or Decline?" The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton & Company, 2006. 1556- 57.
• Jaffee, Valerie. SparkNote on Oliver Twist. 12 Apr. 2008 [http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/oliver/].
• Meldrum, Ronald. "Charles Dickens as Artist and Reformer." Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies 3 (1971): 92-98.
• Wright, Walter Francis. "George Eliot as Industrial Reformer." PMLA 56 (1941): 1107-1115.

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